The Impact of Climate Change on Food Security

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Famine in Africa Are affluent nations doing enough to avert disaster?

W idespread famine threatens more than

40 million people in Africa, including

14 million in southern Africa and an-

other 14 million in Ethiopia. Drought

is partly to blame, as is the HIV/AIDS pandemic that has

killed or sickened millions of farmers who would otherwise

be planting or harvesting crops. Africa-watchers also blame

corrupt and inefficient governments. Some aid experts say

the United States isn’t helping matters by donating genetically

modified (GM) corn to needy countries, a number of which

question the safety of eating the food. They also fear that

farmers will use GM seeds to plant crops that could contam-

inate the continent’s non-GM strains, possibly making them

unfit for export to Europe. But Americans and others say GM

food is perfectly safe and should be used to feed Africa’s

starving people.

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THE ISSUES ......................923

BACKGROUND ..................930

CHRONOLOGY ..................931

CURRENT SITUATION ..........933

AT ISSUE ..........................937

OUTLOOK ........................938

BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................941

THE NEXT STEP ................942

THIS ISSUE

Nov. 8, 2002 • Volume 12, No. 39 • Pages 921-944

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922 CQ Researcher

THE ISSUES

923 • Should the U.S. donate genetically modified grains to countries with famine? • Have farm subsidies in wealthy countries contributed to Africa’s cycle of famine? • Are direct food-aid ship- ments the best way to aid people in a famine?

BACKGROUND

930 An Ancient Plague Famines are described in ancient Egyptian texts as well as the Bible.

930 Hunger in Africa European conquest in the 19th and early 20th cen- turies probably made Africa’s famine situation worse.

CURRENT SITUATION

933 Politics of Famine Countries with despotic lead- ers and few strong democra- tic institutions seem to suffer the worst food crises.

936 Fighting Famine Famines can be predicted, but aid usually is too slow to prevent malnutrition and starvation.

OUTLOOK

938 ‘Death Spiral’? Poverty plagues most of Africa, but aid experts are particularly pessimistic about southern Africa.

SIDEBARS AND GRAPHICS

924 Famine Engulfs the Continent More than 40 million people face hunger and starvation.

925 Famine Is No Stranger to Africa The earliest written reference to famine dates to 3500 B.C. in Egypt.

928 How Geography Hurts Africa Inhospitable climate and en- vironment retarded the conti- nent’s development.

931 Chronology Key events since 1860, when drought helped European settlers conquer new regions.

935 AIDS Toll on Farmers Heightens Famine Seven million African farmers have died of AIDS, undercut- ting rural productivity by 50 percent.

937 At Issue Have World Bank and International Monetary Fund policies contributed to the famine in southern Africa?

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

940 For More Information Organizations to contact.

941 Bibliography Selected sources used.

942 The Next Step Additional articles from current periodicals.

943 Citing The CQ Researcher Sample bibliography formats.

FAMINE IN AFRICA

Cover: A starving child is held by its mother at the pediatric malnutrition ward at Central Hospital in Lilongwe, Malawi, April 24, 2002. More than 14 million people face hunger and starvation in Malawi and other southern African nations. (AP Photo/Obed Zilwa)

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Nov. 8, 2002 923CQ on the Web: www.cqpress.com

Famine in Africa

THE ISSUES C hristina Tshuma and

Tsverudzeni Makaha share much in com-

mon. Both are Zimbabwean grandmothers, and both are bone thin due to a famine that is threatening millions of their countrymen.

But there is at least one crucial difference: Tshuma has received food aid and Maka- ha has not.

“We have just been drink- ing water,” Tshuma said in mid- October. “We had no mealie meal, nothing to eat.” 1 The emaciated woman also had re- cently watched her son-in-law succumb to AIDS, making her responsible for feeding her daughter and five grandchil- dren.

Despite these hardships, there was reason for optimism. The family had reached a well- stocked food distribution cen- ter in the western town of Tsholotsho and was being fed enough to survive.

On the same day on the other side of the country near Zimbabwe’s East- ern Highlands, Makaha faced a dif- ferent, bleaker reality: “Don’t go leave us to die,” she pleaded with a reporter on the scene. 2 Food aid had yet to reach Makaha’s area, and many were starving.

“People here have been relying on wild fruits and roots and have even been reduced to eating green leaves,” said Kaniz Kahn, an aid official with the United Nations (U.N.) World Food Program (WFP). 3

The situation in Zimbabwe, both hopeful and tragic, is being repeated throughout much of Africa, where the WFP estimates more than 40 million Africans are facing starvation — in- cluding 14.4 million in southern Africa.

The famine in the south is the re- sult of a combination of factors: the worst drought in 20 years, incompe- tent or corrupt local governments and extraordinarily high rates of HIV/AIDs. Indeed, southern Africa is experienc- ing what Washington Post reporter Jon Jeter chillingly calls “a perfect famine” — with both nature and humanity doing their utmost to cause the great- est food shortage in the region in 60 years. 4

The hunger zone in the south runs across the continent, from war-torn Angola on the Atlantic Coast to Mozam- bique on the Indian Ocean. Flanked between these two large countries are Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Swazi- land, which are also at risk.

The epicenter of the southern famine is Zimbabwe, which traditionally has fed not only its own population but

also exported food. Close to 7 million Zimbabweans are now at risk of starvation, and about half that many in neigh- boring Zambia.

The WFP, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other aid groups have been working for more than six months to prevent the region’s hunger from turn- ing into a humanitarian dis- aster. So far, results have been mixed.

Donors have pledged or given only two-thirds of the more than $500 million need- ed to feed the malnourished, and the numbers of south- ern Africans at risk of star- vation could grow, increas- ing the need for aid, say U.N. officials. 5

“The situation is probably going to get worse before it gets better,” said Marisa Astill-Brown, an aid worker for Save the Children in An- gola. 6

Meanwhile, in central Africa, the continent’s largest country — the chron- ically mismanaged Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) — has been embroiled in a bloody civil war for four years that has left much of it in chaos, without proper governing au- thority. Hunger has taken many of the 3 million Congolese who have died in the last four years and threatens an estimated 1.3 million today. 7 In neigh- boring Uganda, a rebellion in the north and drought are causing mal- nutrition and putting hundreds of thousands at risk.

Famine also threatens the continent’s easternmost tip — the so-called Horn of Africa — where 1 million starved to death in the 1984-85 famine in Ethiopia and Eritrea and an addition- al 350,000 succumbed in Somalia in

BY DAVID MASCI

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Grim-faced Miriam Mushindibaba stands in a ruined maize field in Siyahokwe, Zimbabwe. Severe drought is ravaging crops throughout Africa. The resulting food

shortages have been worsened by misguided government policies, corruption, civil war and an HIV/AIDS

pandemic. Famine now threatens 40 million Africans — including 7 million Zimbabweans

and 14 million Ethiopians.

Continued on p. 925

924 CQ Researcher

FAMINE IN AFRICA

Famine Engulfs the Continent More than 40 million Africans — 5 percent of the continent’s population — face hunger and starvation due to drought, poverty, civil war, government mismanagement and widespread HIV/AIDS in rural areas. Ethiopia and southern Africa are among the hardest-hit areas.

MADAGASCAR

SOUTH AFRICA

LESOTHO

N A M I B I A

B OT S WA N A

A N G O L A

MOZAMBIQUE

Z A M B I A

D E M O C R AT I C R E P U B L I C

O F T H E C O N G O ( f o r m e r l y Z A I R E )

TANZANIA

SWAZILAND

K E N Y A

E T H I O P I A

S U D A N

CHAD

CENTRAL AFRICAN

REPUBLIC

N I G E R I A

CAMEROON

EQUATORIAL GUINEA

G A B O N

CONGO

I V O R Y C O A S T

GHANA TOGO

BENIN

BURKINO FASO

M A L I SENEGAL

GAMBIA

GUINEA BISSAU G U I N E A

SIERRA LEONE

LIBERIA

WESTERN SAHARA

M O R O C C O A L G E R I A

L I B Y A

TUNISIA

N I G E R

E G Y P T

S O M A L I A

Y E M E N

S A U D I

A R A B I A

DJIBOUTI

I R A Q I R A N

JORDAN

S Y R I A

ISRAEL

LEBANON

RWANDA

BURUNDI

MALAWI

T U R K E YS P A I N

QATAR

BAHRAIN

KUWAIT

CYPRUS

Canary Is.

A T L A N T I C O C E A N

A T L A N T I C O C E A N

I N D I A N

O C E A N

M E D I T E

R R

A N E A N S E A

R E

D

S E

A

S A H A R A D E S E R T

ZIMBABWE

Sources: World Food Program

ERITREA

M A U R I TA N I A

Zambia —- 3 million face starvation due to two years of drought.

Zimbabwe — 7 million face starvation, largely due to drought and government confiscation of farms.

Angola —- Civil war devas- tates the country, leaving 1.5 million hungry.

Lesotho — Drought leaves 650,000 needing food.

Swaziland — Dry spell leaves 270,000 needing food.

Malawi — 3 million face starvation due to drought and apparent food-aid corruption.

Sudan — 3 million face starvation due to a 19-year civil war in the south.

Ethiopia — Widespread drought threatens 14 million.

Eritrea — More than 1 million face starvation due to drought and eco- nomic mismanagement.

Uganda — Thousands face food shortages due to civil war in the north.

Ivory Coast —- 4 million face malnutrition due to civil war.

Mauritania — 5 million face starvation due to drought.

Congo — 1.3 million are at risk of starvation. More than 3 million have died — many from hunger — in the last four years due to an ongoing civil war.

UGANDA

Mozambique — Hunger caused by floods and drought threatens 500,000.

Nov. 8, 2002 925CQ on the Web: www.cqpress.com

the early 1990s. Today an estimated 14 million people are in danger of starving in Ethiopia alone, and a mil- lion more are threatened in drought- ridden Eritrea.

In many famine areas, politics has complicated relief efforts, and in some cases contributed to the problem. In Sudan, where nearly 3 million people are at risk, aid efforts are constantly hampered by a two-decade-old civil war, as both sides try to use the famine to their military advantage. 8

In Zimbabwe, the government’s re- cent seizure of white-owned farms has made an already bad situation worse, as longtime caretakers were kicked off their land, and many productive farms

have gone fallow in the hands of the regime’s political cronies. Aid workers also criticize the Zimbabwean gov- ernment for refusing to relax its mo- nopoly on grain imports so that pri- vate companies can bring food into the country.

Finally, in Zambia, a dispute over the safety of genetically modified (GM) corn from the United States is exacerbating an already dire situation. More than 20,000 tons of U.S. corn have arrived in the country but have not been distributed to the hungry, and further U.S. shipments have been halted. In Zimbabwe and Malawi, GM corn can only be distributed if the kernels are first milled so they can- not be used as seed.

Environmental activists and officials in the three countries worry that some of the GM corn donated by the Unit- ed States could end up being plant- ed by recipients, possibly damaging the region’s agriculture and environ- ment. The spread of GM crops could jeopardize Africa’s food exports to Eu- rope, where GM foods are not pop- ular, they argue. In addition, the Zam- bian government is concerned about the health risks of eating GM food.

U.S. officials and others argue that GM crops are as safe as non-GM al- ternatives, both for the environment and consumers, and that countries like Zambia should use them to feed their starving citizens. “This is really stupid and misguided on their part, because

Famine Is No Stranger to Africa

Sources: Encyclopedia Americana; U.N. World Food Program

Major Famines in Modern Africa

Africa has had to cope with famine throughout its history. In fact, the earliest written reference to fam- ine was in an African country — Egypt — in 3500 B.C. In modern times, famine has occurred some- where on the continent at least once every decade. In the past few years, more than 2 million Africans have died of starvation or diseases associated with malnutrition. Currently, more than 40 million people are threatened with hunger in Africa.

Year Location Number Affected

1967-69 Biafra, Nigeria 1.5 million die of starvation after government blockades breakaway territory.

1968-74 The Sahel (Senegal, 500,000 people and 5 million cattle die from drought and Mauritania, Mali, mismanaged food aid. then-Upper Volta, Nigeria, Niger, Chad)

1973 Ethiopia 100,000 die after Emperor Haile Selassie delays asking for food aid.

1974 Somalia Drought threatens 230,000.

1983-85 The Sahel; eastern, 22 million in 22 countries suffer due to prolonged drought, southern Africa including 1 million deaths in Ethiopia.

1992-94 Somalia 350,000 die due to civil war and drought.

Continued from p. 923

926 CQ Researcher

FAMINE IN AFRICA

we [Americans] eat GM food and have been for years, and we’re fine,” says Marcus Noland, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics. “So people who are literally starving to death shouldn’t eat them? That’s ridiculous.”

Experts also differ over how the West should provide assistance. Some favor the European Union’s (EU) method of giving money to buy food in or near the affected areas, because it helps strengthen the local agricultural system, thus discourag- ing future crop shortages. Others support the U.S. approach of direct- ly giving food aid to famine-stricken countries, because there is often lit- tle food to buy on the local market in famine areas.

But while both monetary and food assistance have been used to eradi- cate famine in Asia and other impov- erished places, donors have not been able to break hunger’s back in Africa. Even in so-called good years, malnu- trition afflicts many Africans. Accord- ing to the WFP, a quarter of the con- tinent’s population — nearly 200 million people — go to bed hungry each night. One in five African children suffers from the effects of malnutrition, which can include mental retardation and stunted growth.

Many say the cycle of famine and malnutrition is due in part to the rich world’s practice of paying its own farm- ers almost $1 billion a day in agri- cultural subsidies, which end up sup- pressing international food prices. That makes it hard for African farmers to compete in the world market and, hence, weakens the continent’s agri- cultural sector.

“Basically subsidies allow farmers in Europe and the United States to dump their crops in Africa at a re- duced price and drive local farmers out of business,” says Jo Marie Gries- graber, a spokeswoman for Oxfam America, a food aid organization ac- tive throughout Africa.

But representatives of farmers and others say Western farmers are not di- rectly competing with their African coun- terparts. “Overseas subsidies have an impact when you’re producing and selling the same crops, but farmers in Africa are largely producing different crops,” says Audrae Erickson, president of the Corn Refiners Association and chairwoman of the AGTrade Coalition, an interest group that promotes freer worldwide agricultural trade.

Africans have always faced the threat of famine, due in large part to natur- al disadvantages in many parts of the continent. For instance, Africa, espe- cially in its southern tier, suffers from erratic rainfall and poor soil quality in many places, which make it hard to grow crops. (See related story, p. 928.)

Moreover, Africans are facing the overwhelming challenge of an HIV/AIDS pandemic, which is making food self-sufficiency even harder. More than half of all HIV/AIDs cases in the world are in Africa. In many parts of the continent, particularly in the south, the disease has become an epidemic of biblical proportions, affecting one in five or even one in four adults. (See story, p. 935.)

A disease like HIV/AIDS, which kills the sexually active and hence most productive members of society, is an ally of famine. Millions of chil- dren have been orphaned due to the disease, and many fields have no one strong enough to plow, plant and har- vest them.

As African countries and aid agen- cies grapple with all of the factors causing the famine, here are some of the questions experts are asking:

Should the United States donate genetically modified grains to countries coping with famine?

With 3 to 4 million citizens facing starvation, Zambia is very much in the thick of southern Africa’s famine. Yet, warehouses full of corn sit within sight of malnourished people.

“We are dying here,” Josephine Na- mangolwa shouted at aid workers check- ing a fully stocked warehouse in the Zambian village of Chipapa on August 28. “We want to eat,” said the woman, who along with her eight children had not had a solid meal in days. 9

But Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa told the recent U.N. Sus- tainable Development Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, “We may be poor and experiencing severe food shortages, but we aren’t ready to ex- pose our people to ill-defined risks.” 10

The risks Mwanawasa referred to al- legedly come from GM corn that the United States shipped to Zambia and other famine-gripped African countries. In August, the Zambian government asked the WFP (which is distributing the U.S. aid) not to hand out some 12,000 tons of U.S.-grown corn already in the country because some of it came from genetically modified stocks. * It also has asked the American govern- ment to ship non-GM food in the fu- ture. Other countries, notably Zimbab- we and Malawi, also have expressed reservations about accepting genetical- ly altered crops.

Although Americans have been eat- ing a variety of GM foods since the 1990s, there is widespread controver- sy overseas surrounding their poten- tial health and environmental impact. Critics claim that splicing genes from different plants or animals into food crops to make them more resistant to insects or weeds or to boost yields could have unforeseen health effects in the future.

“Even in the U.S., since GM foods aren’t labeled, we have no idea whether some of them aren’t causing chronic health effects in some people,” says Charles Margulis, a genetic engineer-

* Corn shipped by the U.S. to Africa contains both GM and non-GM kernels. No effort is made to segregate the two types. According to USAID, about 30 percent of the corn comes from genetically modified stocks.

Nov. 8, 2002 927CQ on the Web: www.cqpress.com

ing specialist at the environmental group Greenpeace. “The cigarette makers spent 50 years claim- ing that their prod- ucts did no harm.”

Just as important, Margulis and others say, GM foods also could have a far- reaching and dam- aging environmental impact. “In Mexico, GM corn has conta- minated local corn and . . . has [over- powered] local vari- eties, making them extinct,” Margulis says. “Thus, much of the genetic di- versity of the crop, which is essentially a genetic seed bank, is being destroyed.”

The same thing could happen if African countries embrace GM crops, says Donald Mavunduse, a Zimbab- wean working as an emergency pro- gram adviser at ActionAid, a London- based aid group. “GM crops contaminate the soil, making it difficult to revert to other more traditional seeds afterwards,” he says.

Perhaps most damaging, he says, is the fact that the patented GM seeds cannot be planted again without pay- ing a fee, which is untenable in Africa, where farmers usually set aside a por- tion of their crop for next season’s seeds. “This would lock out a lot of African farmers who could not afford to buy new seeds and could not plant anything else,” he says.

The corn shipped as famine relief comes in two forms — as milled meal and unmilled kernels that could be used as seed. Fearing that some of the kernels might be planted, the Zam- bians, Zimbabweans and Malawians have banned their use. Zimbabwe and Malawi have agreed to allow distrib-

ution of GM corn if it is milled and, hence, not plantable.

To many U.S. officials, agricultural experts and some in the aid commu- nity, concerns over GM foods are not only unfounded, but tragic, since they have led governments to sit on food while their people starve to death. “We don’t see how a country can say there may be risks, therefore we will not give it to the population, when there is the [clear] risk that the population will die of hunger,” said Jacques Diouf, president of the U.N. Food and Agri- culture Organization (FAO). 11

Proponents of GM foods say they are as safe to eat as non-GM crops. “These products have been proven safe in every manner known to science,” says Alex Avery, director of research at the Center for Global Issues at the Hudson Institute. “All of us in the Unit- ed States have been eating these foods for years without any trouble. They are absolutely safe.”

Proponents also dismiss claims that GM crops will harm the environment, arguing that there is no scientific evi- dence — in Mexico or elsewhere —

showing any environ- mental damage associat- ed with planting modi- fied seeds. Instead, supporters claim, anti-GM activists are substituting facts for gut feelings.

“They know there’s no evidence that genet- ically modified crops are dangerous, so they invoke something called the ‘precautionary prin- ciple,” writes syndicated columnist Sebastian Mal- laby, who specializes in international economics issues. “This says, we have no grounds for shutting out this stuff, but it gives us a queasy feeling, so we’ll shut it out anyway.” 12

Mallaby goes on to say that tests in Europe to determine whether GM crops can harm the environment have been disrupted or, in some cases, de- stroyed by the very people who claim the plants are doing harm to the plan- et. “Apparently the technophobes don’t want their hypotheses tested.” 13

Finally, proponents say the Zam- bians and others are actually most worried that by accepting GM food from the United States they will harm their agricultural exports to Europe, which has banned some genetically altered crops. “This is the most hideous politicization of a tragedy,” says the Institute for International Eco- nomics’ Noland, “because you have these rich Europeans literally telling people who are starving to death that they can’t accept free food. Mean- while, Zambia’s elite are not going to suffer from the famine, [but] they stand to lose significant amounts of money if exports to Europe stop.”

However, the EU denies pressur- ing Africans not to accept U.S. food aid. “We haven’t told them not to take this aid,” says Maeve O’Beirne, a

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An ongoing civil war is ravaging the Democratic Republic of Congo — Africa’s largest nation. Fighting in the past four years involving eight other nations has led to the deaths of more than 3 million Congolese,

many from starvation; another 1.3 million more are threatened. War is among the major causes of famine in Africa.

928 CQ Researcher

FAMINE IN AFRICA

spokeswoman for the European Union. “Nor have we told them that they are jeopardizing exports if they do.” Eu- rope grows and imports some GM crops, she points out.

Meanwhile, some GM opponents accuse the United States of using food aid as a lever to pry open the African market, making modified crops more acceptable to Africans. “I think the ad-

ministration is more interested in pro- moting biotech crops than in feeding starving people,” Margulis says.

But GM proponents deny that there is any alternative agenda. “I’m not sure why we’d want to pry open a market where people can’t pay for food imports,” says Terry Barr, chief economist at the National Council of Farm Cooperatives, an agricultural

trade interest group. “You’d think they’d be shipping GM crops to every market but Africa, if that was their true motive.”

Have farm subsidies in wealthy countries contributed to Africa’s cycle of famine?

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Develop-

I n Guns, Germs and Steel, his Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the rise of civilization, Jared Diamond argued that geographical and environmental factors largely shaped the

modern world. Populations with access to regular rainfall, fer- tile soil and animals that could be easily domesticated usually developed richer, more technologically sophisticated societies, he wrote.

Diamond, a professor of physiology at the University of Cal- ifornia School of Medicine, ranks sub-Saharan Africa’s overall environment near the bottom among places well suited for human development. “Food production was delayed in sub- Saharan Africa by Africa’s paucity of domesticatable native an- imal and plant species [and] its much smaller area suitable for indigenous food production,” he wrote. 1 By comparison, he argued, Europe and Asia and North America are more suited for domestic agriculture, offering pigs, plants like wheat and large fertile areas for cultivation.

While most experts acknowledge the role played by envi- ronmental factors in Africa’s periodic bouts with starvation, they place much of the blame on manmade causes, such as cor- ruption, war and agricultural inefficiency spawned by colo- nialism.

Still, Mother Nature does play an important role. Much of Africa’s land resists efficient, profitable farming. “The land in many parts of Africa just doesn’t support as many people as is necessary,” says Donald Mavunduse, an emergency-program adviser with Actionaid, a relief group based in London.

Poor soil fertility is part of the problem, especially in south- ern Africa. “Because many areas haven’t had volcanic or glacial activity in hundreds of millions of years, they now have dry and weathered soil,” says James Newman, a geology professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship. “This isn’t the kind of soil you want for growing things. You want soil that’s recently been unearthed and that’s still rich.”

In addition, sub-Saharan Africa’s weather often leaves farm- ers with either too much or too little rainfall. “What you have is essentially a monsoon climate, with periods of great drought and great rainfall,” Newman says, which makes life very hard for farmers.”

Compounding the problem, African farmers in many places have not developed irrigation as a tool to protect against the unpredictable rainfall, says Jonathan Clarke, a fellow at the lib- ertarian CATO Institute. “Farmers are completely at the mercy of the weather patterns,” he says.

In the past, Newman says, Africans compensated for such problems by maintaining diverse food sources. In addition to cultivating fields, he says, “They kept livestock, hunted and gathered wild produce to supplement their diet and cultivated different crops in different areas.”

But population growth, colonialism and urbanization changed everything. Indeed, Africa’s population has ballooned to 800 million and is expected to more than double in the next 50 years. 2 “You need a lot of territory to maintain diverse food sources, and that just isn’t possible with more and more peo- ple,” Newman says.

Colonial boundaries also restricted the movement of no- madic peoples and created European-style farms raising cash crops meant for export, like coffee and cocoa. “Europeans re- stricted the amount of land available to indigenous people, and land ownership [by the newcomers] made it impossible to move around in search of new things to eat,” Newman says.

In the post-colonial period, urbanization also has played a role, as Africans have left the land in increasing numbers and moved to the cities. According to the U.N., some of the world’s fastest-growing urban areas are in Africa, many in the coun- tries hit hardest by famine, such as Malawi and Ethiopia. 3

Urban dwellers in Africa are often entirely dependent on inefficient farming sectors and governments that do not serve their needs. Prices can fluctuate wildly and, for the very poor, food can quickly become out of reach.

“Africans are wonderful at coping, but a lot of them have to deal with forces that are completely out of their control,” Newman says.”

1 Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel (1996), p. 398. 2 “Africa, India, Keys to World Population Growth,” The Associated Press, June 8, 2000. 3 “Challenge of Urbanization Faced by Those Least Able to Meet It, U.N. Says,” The Associated Press, Aug. 27, 2002.

How Geography Hampers Africa

Nov. 8, 2002 929CQ on the Web: www.cqpress.com

ment (OECD), rich countries in North America, Europe and elsewhere spent about $310 billion, or almost $1 billion a day in 2001, directly and indirectly subsidizing their farmers. 14

The biggest payouts go to small farmers in France, Germany and other EU countries. Direct subsides alone to- taled about $40 billion in the EU last year. 15 Indirect subsidies, such as pay- ments for certain environmentally sound practices, also were substantial.

The United States also gives big subsidies. The recently enacted farm bill will give U.S. farmers $100 billion in direct subsidies over the next eight years. Other countries, like Japan, Aus- tralia and Canada, also pay their farm- ers huge subsidies.

Subsidy critics contend that they lower food prices and make it hard for Third World farmers to compete internationally. As a result, already shaky agricultural systems in many parts of Africa are weakened even fur- ther, they say, making famine the pre- dictable result.

“Western farmers, especially in the U.S., already enjoy advantages over Africa, with access to fertilizer and ma- chinery,” says Jonathan Clarke, a re- search fellow in foreign policy stud- ies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “When you add subsidies into the mix then it becomes even more lopsided.”

According to Clarke and others, cheaper subsidized crops from Eu- rope and other industrialized coun- tries often put African farmers out of business. “They’re priced out of the market,” he says. “Sometimes they can’t even sell in their own villages because Western grain is so much cheaper.”

And, while African consumers ben- efit from cheaper food, buying subsi- dized imports can be disastrous in the long term, critics say. “When there’s a food shortage, or foreign-exchange rates change [unfavorably] — making food imports much more expensive

— then you don’t have the local pro- ducers in place to make up the short- fall, and all of a sudden, lo and be- hold, you have a famine,” says Oxfam’s Griesgraber.

Subsidy proponents counter that the farm-support programs play little or no role in Africa’s famines — even indirectly — because subsidized crops are not being exported to Africa in large amounts.

“Many of these poorer countries in Africa don’t have the income to pur- chase significant amounts of food from the U.S. and Europe,” says Erickson of the Corn Refiners Association. “So it really isn’t a very big market for the U.S. and others.”

But even if the developed world exported a lot of subsidized food to Africa, it still would probably do little harm to African farmers because the most common crops in industrialized countries — with the exception of corn — don’t directly compete with the staples grown in sub-Saharan Africa. “The growing conditions in those coun- tries are not at all conducive to most of the types of crops subsidized here,” Erickson says. “The soil conditions and lack of irrigation mean that they grow things like cassava, not the wheat, soy beans and rice that we are growing.”

Besides, she adds, Africans gener- ally don’t eat wheat, rice and other Western staples. “We sell very little food in Africa, primarily because the Africans eat different staples than the crops we grow,” she says.

Finally, subsidy supporters say, Africa’s agriculture is usually too low- tech to compete with farmers in af- fluent countries. “If you ended all sub- sidies tomorrow, Africa would not realize most of the opportunities pre- sented because they don’t have the stable political and economic systems that allow farmers to really be pro- ductive,” Avery says, referring to prop- erty rights, the rule of law and access to capital to buy equipment, seeds and fertilizer. “So, by definition, subsidies

are not really having a major impact on African agriculture.”

In fact, supporters say, subsidies are useful in times of crisis, because they help create surpluses and lower prices, allowing more food to be shipped to Africa when it is most needed. “It does allow us to produce and market grains at much lower prices,” says the Na- tional Council of Farm Cooperatives’ Barr. “This in turn allows rich coun- tries to bring more food to countries dealing with shortages.”

Are direct food-aid shipments the best way to aid people in a famine?

Much has been made lately of the differences between Europe and the United States. From issues like capital punishment to the safety of GM crops, Americans and Europeans tend to think differently.

The same is true when it comes to famine relief. While the United States prefers to send food directly to hun- gry people, the 15 EU member states usually give money that can then be used to buy food in or near the coun- tries affected.

Supporters of the EU policy con- tend that it accomplishes a double good — feeding starving people and supporting African farmers. “By buy- ing food on the local market you help keep the farmers in business, and that’s very important, because they’re charged with feeding the country,” says the EU’s O’Beirne.

By contrast, the U.S. system of im- porting and distributing American food can have a terrible impact on local agriculture, she and others say. “When you dump a lot of food aid into an area, it competes with local farmers by driving down prices,” says Jennifer Tufts, a development officer with the EU.

In addition, money gives aid providers much more flexibility in how they can respond to a crisis. “More often than not, we prefer cash

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because it allows us to respond faster and to be more flexible,” says Khaled Mansour, a spokesman for the WFP.

Having more flexibility provides re- lief workers several big advantages, Tufts argues. “Using money to buy food locally allows us to provide something that is tailor-made for the country,” she says. “Instead of just giv- ing [famine victims] what you have in surplus, you can provide them with something that they want to eat, some- thing that meets their specific nutri- tional needs and something they’re ac- customed to eating.”

Moreover, she says, direct food aid can be very slow, often arriving after the worst part of a crisis has passed. “By the time you ship it from its point of origin, and get it through the var- ious bureaucratic hurdles, it may not be needed anymore,” she says. On the other hand, buying food locally, or from nearby countries, reduces the time needed to get it to hungry people.

But supporters of direct food aid say it is the best form of assistance when, for whatever reason, a country has run out of food. “Look, if you’re in a gen- uine famine, that means that there’s not enough food to go around and prices have risen,” says Gerald P. O’Driscoll, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foun- dation, a conservative think tank. “So at the end of the day, you don’t need more money, you need more food.”

Oxfam’s Griesgraber agrees: “If there’s no local production because of drought, or whatever, then you’d bet- ter come with food because money just isn’t going to do it.”

USAID Director Andrew Natsios re- cently echoed these remarks. “The food deficit in southern Africa is so big there’s no way people can buy it on the local market,” Natsios said. “It has to come from outside.” 16

Indeed, direct food-aid supporters say, providing cash really only works when conditions allow most people to be fed without outside assistance. “The only way this really works is if

you have a lot of food at the local markets,” says Ellen Levinson, chair- woman of the Food Aid Council, a coalition of food assistance groups. “And in most cases, when you have this, you don’t need aid, because there is no danger of shortages.”

Purchasing locally might not even be a good idea in those countries where there is food available and famine or the threat of famine still ex- ists, Levinson and others say. “You can really end up making matters worse when you spend a lot of money to buy from local farmers, because you can drive up food prices in general,” she says. “You end up competing with local people who are starving, which defeats the whole purpose of provid- ing assistance.”

But others say that monetary aid can be effective, even after a famine is already in full swing. “Famine isn’t really a physical phenomenon, but an economic one,” says the Institute for International Economics’ Noland. “Famines start because the price of food is beyond many people’s reach, so money can be an effective way to bring that food to the needy.”

BACKGROUND An Ancient Plague

F amine is described in ancient Egyptian texts and the Bible, sug-

gesting food shortages are as old as human civilization. Both the Greeks and Romans knew it well, as did countless other ancient cultures. Most countries — including green and lush lands such as Italy, France and Ire- land — have experienced mass star- vation. The Irish potato famine (1845 to 1849) killed a million people and caused even more to emigrate.

The 20th century has seen history’s most dire famines, often due to war or misguided policies. Soviet leader Josef Stalin intentionally starved an es- timated 6 million Ukrainians in 1932 and 1933. Mao Tse-tung’s collectiviza- tion of China’s agriculture in 1959 and 1960 — known as the Great Leap For- ward — is thought to have caused tens of millions of Chinese peasants to starve to death.

Until recently, most of the biggest famines took place in Asia or Eurasia. In addition to China and Russia, parts of the Indian subcontinent and In- dochina regularly grappled with mass starvation.

In the last few decades though, famine has faded from view in most of the world. Even poor countries with large populations, like India or Bangladesh, no longer experience mass starvation, thanks in large part to the “Green Revolution,” the develop- ment of new seeds and agricultural techniques that dramatically raised agri- cultural productivity and helped feed billions of people. The last great mass starvation outside Africa occurred in the mid- to late-1970s, when Khmer Rouge government policies in Cambodia led to an estimated 1 million deaths.

Today, Africa is the only continent routinely still at risk for famine. Mil- lions of Africans have died of malnu- trition in the last 20 years alone.

“Famine is conquerable,” writes Alex de Waal, in Famine Crimes: Politics and the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa. “It has been eradicated from most of the world. But in some coun- tries in Africa human suffering seems to be getting more, rather than less, common.” 17

Hunger in Africa

T he historical record is scanty, but there is ample archaeological and

FAMINE IN AFRICA

Continued on p. 932

Nov. 8, 2002 931CQ on the Web: www.cqpress.com

Chronology 1850-1950 European colonization creates new conditions for famine.

1860 Three-year drought in southern Africa causes widespread starva- tion, helping European settlers conquer new regions.

1876 Belgium’s colonization of Congo begins. Brutal exploitation of the colony kills millions, many from starvation.

1896 British colonial government of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) creates famine to pacify the rebellious Ndebelle tribe.

1943 Famine in Rwanda caused by Bel- gian economic mismanagement kills 300,000. . . . U.S. Bishops found Catholic Relief Services to assist the worlds poorest people.

•

1960s-1970s Most African colonies gain in- dependence, but the cycle of famine continues, prompting the international community to help.

1961 By executive order, President John F. Kennedy creates the U.S. Agency for International Develop- ment (USAID) to assist the devel- oping world.

1963 United Nations establishes World Food Program (WFP).

1967 Famine created by Nigeria’s govern- ment to put down separatist rebels in Biafra province kills 1.5 million.

1968 Drought triggers six-year famine in West Africa that kills 500,000.

1973 Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie rejects international food aid dur- ing a famine, contributing to the starvation of 100,000.

1974 United States and more than 100 other nations at the World Food Conference in Rome pledge that within a decade no child will go hungry.

•

1980s-Present Starvation continues to plague Africa, compounded by civil war and government corruption.

1983 Drought again threatens Ethiopia. The country’s Marxist government responds ineffectually; 1 million die during the resulting two-year famine.

1985 Irish rocker Bob Geldoff and other Western pop stars perform in “Live Aid” concert to raise $100 million for famine relief in Ethiopia.

1992 Civil war and mass starvation in Somalia prompt the United States and other nations to send troops to ensure that food aid reaches the intended victims. . . . Ethiopia’s Marxist government falls.

1994 Rebels ambush and kill 17 Ameri- can soldiers in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, prompting the interna- tional coalition to pull out.

1996 United Nations announces that 800 million of the world’s people are not getting enough food to eat.

1998 Civil war begins in Congo. Death toll to date is 3 million, many from starvation.

2000 Malawi sells its grain reserves, ignor- ing warnings of imminent famine.

2001 Zimbabwean President Robert Mu- gabe announces plan to confiscate farms mainly owned by whites, which later undercuts crop pro- duction and causes widespread famine.

February 2002 WFP and non-governmental organi- zations (NGOs) begin feeding famine victims in southern Africa.

August 2002 Zambia rejects genetically modified (GM) U.S. corn. Zimbabwe and Malawi agree to take the GM corn after it is milled.

September 2002 WFP raises the estimated number of southern Africans in danger of starvation to 14.4 million.

October 2002 The WFP announces that up to 14 million people in Ethiopia may require food assistance due to drought conditions that began in fall 2001.

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other evidence to suggest that — as in Asia, Europe and elsewhere — mass starvation occurred in Africa.

The European conquest of Africa, largely in the 19th and early 20th cen- turies, probably made the situation worse. War, upheaval and greed often marginalized tribes, leading to poverty and hunger. Ancient means of self-sufficiency, such as migrating away from drought and poor crops, became unrealistic after Europeans carved the cont inen t up in to colonies and privately owned plots of land.

Probably the worst colonial-era famine took place in the Congo, where the Belgian King Leopold II treated the huge central African ter- ritory and its population as his personal proper- ty to be exploited for maximum profit. During the last two decades of the 19th century, mil- lions of indigenous people died (many of starvation) due to bru- tal overwork and ne- glect on the part of their European overlords.

In other places, famine was used by European conquerors to suppress native resis- tance. For instance, in 1896 the British de- stroyed grain stocks and prevented the Ndebele tribe in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) from harvesting their crops in a successful effort to starve the rebellious tribe into submission. 18

The worst famine in the late colo- nial period took place in 1943-44 in the Belgian colony of Rwanda. A plan

to make the Rwandans finance the Belgians’ administration of the colony led to the requisition of much native agricultural production at a time when the region was experiencing a drought. An estimated 300,000 Rwan- dans died as a result.

After World War II, Europe’s colonies

in Africa gained their independence. But, in many cases, new, homegrown leaders were no different from former colonial masters — corrupt, careless and willing to use hunger to advance their interests.

For instance, in 1967 and ’68, when Biafra tried to break away from Nige- ria to form an independent country, the central government cut off food supplies to the province; an estimat- ed 1.5 million people starved to death.

Meanwhile, a drought was cutting a wide swath across western Africa.

Nigeria, Mauritania, Mali, Chad and Senegal were all affected. Aid from the in- dustrialized world often did- n’t reach the intended vic- tims because of local government corruption. When the famine ended in 1974, about 500,000 had perished.

The mid-1970s also saw starvation in the Horn of Africa due to drought and government mismanage- ment. About 100,000 died from malnutrition in 1973 in Ethiopia, due in part to Emperor Haile Selassie’s refusal to appeal to the in- ternational community for help, for fear of hurting the country’s tourism industry. A year later, drought also killed thousands in neigh- boring Somalia.

In the 1980s, Africa suf- fered through some of the most severe famines in its history. Early in the decade, a civil war in Sudan be- tween the Muslim-Arab north and the Christian-an- imist south caused 85 per- cent of the southern popu- lation to leave the area. Not surprisingly, famine quickly became (and still is) com- mon in the war zones, where

displaced refugees cannot plant or har- vest food. More than 2 million Su- danese have died in the last two decades.

At the same time, a famine was brewing in Ethiopia that would cap- tivate and horrify the developed world

FAMINE IN AFRICA

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Villagers line up for United Nations food aid being distributed by Catholic Relief Services in Kasungu, Malawi. Several famine-

ravaged African countries have raised questions about the safety of genetically modified (GM) corn from the United States.

Malawi allows the use of GM corn if the kernels are first milled so they cannot be used as seed. Zambia refuses to use it.

Nov. 8, 2002 933CQ on the Web: www.cqpress.com

in ways that few examples of mass starvation have before or since. The country had long suffered from food shortages caused by droughts, eco- nomic mismanagement and civil war, but in 1984 these factors combined to put millions at risk. A severe drought left fields throughout much of the coun- try dry and unproductive. Meanwhile, ongoing fighting between Ethiopia’s communist government and two rebel groups was hampering both agricul- tural production and relief services. Fi- nally, many Ethiopians lived in remote areas and were hard to reach even in the best of times. 19

In 1983, relief groups began issu- ing warnings about the prospect of mass starvation. At first, Western gov- ernments were slow to respond, in part out of a fear that aid could be stolen or misdirected by the country’s corrupt regime.

But in 1984, images of starving peo- ple began appearing on TV screens throughout the industrialized world. Soon the United States and other rich countries were sending relief.

The severity of the famine prompt- ed pop musicians in England and the United States, under the leadership of Irish rocker Bob Geldoff, to band to- gether for a transatlantic concert, known as “Live Aid,” to raise money for Ethiopi- an famine relief. The concert and sales of related recordings raised $100 mil- lion for relief and raised awareness of famine for millions who knew little of Africa’s plight.

Despite a massive outpouring of in- ternational assistance, Ethiopia’s famine was one of the worst in modern mem- ory, taking an estimated 1 million lives.

Africa’s next great famine occurred in nearby Somalia in 1992, after the country’s dictator, Siad Barre, was overthrown by two clan leaders. They then turned on each other, condemn- ing much of the country to civil war and chaos. Famine soon followed.

Efforts by aid groups to feed starv- ing Somalis were stymied. The two

competing warlords demanded pay- ments to let food be distributed. Meanwhile, millions were facing star- vation.

In 1992, the United States led an international force of 20,000 troops into the country to ensure that food aid reached its intended recipients. The intervention did facilitate aid dis- tribution. But in 1994, 17 American troops were killed while fighting one of the warlords’ forces. Images of dead U.S. troops being dragged through the streets of the Somali cap- ital of Mogadishu damaged public sup- port for the operation, and the ex- peditionary force was subsequently withdrawn.

Analysts attribute America’s subse- quent unwillingness to intervene in the 1994 Rwandan genocide to the U.S. public’s anger and repulsion over the Mogadishu incident.

CURRENT SITUATION

Politics of Famine

N obel Prize-winning economist Amaryta Sen of India has long

argued that famines don’t occur in de- mocratic countries, because govern- ments that must be responsive to peo- ple’s needs to remain in power would never let large numbers of citizens go hungry.

“The diverse political freedoms avail- able in a democratic state, including regular elections, free newspapers and freedom of speech, must be seen as the real force behind the elimination of famines,” he wrote in 1990. “Here again, it appears that one set of free- doms — to criticize, publish and vote — are linked with other types of free-

doms, such as the freedom to escape starvation and famine mortality.” 20

Sen’s theory seems quite apt in Africa, where there are few strong de- mocratic institutions and where the tradition of being led by a tribal leader — or a dictator — lives on in many countries. “I don’t think anyone real- ly questions the fact that malgover- nance is the prominent factor in Africa’s famines,” says J. Stephen Morrison, di- rector of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The connection between bad gov- ernance and famine is especially evi- dent in Zimbabwe, where about 7 mil- lion people are at risk of starvation, he says. Once one of Africa’s most promising countries, Zimbabwe is now seen as run by a corrupt and venal leader, longtime President Robert Mugabe. The former freedom fighter has suppressed democracy, human rights and economic develop- ment in order to stay in power, say his critics. His recent land-reform ef- forts — in which he seized many white- owned and some black-owned farms — have all but shut down much of the country’s once-thriving agricultur- al sector, helping to trigger much of the current famine, critics contend.

“These land seizures have com- pletely disrupted agriculture, because he’s given the most productive farms over to political cronies,” who often lack farming skills, says the Institute for International Economics’ Noland. “So you have mayhem caused by a man who is literally a monster be- cause he has helped cause the famine for political gain.”

And Mugabe is still using the famine for political gain, Noland continues, by “allocating food aid to political supporters and denying it to oppo- nents.”

“Yes, he is using famine as a po- litical tool,” agrees Marina Ottoway, associate director of the Carnegie In- stitute for International Peace and an

934 CQ Researcher

expert on Africa. “Those villages that don’t support the government don’t get help.”

But Mugabe defends the land con- fiscations, arguing that he is simply redressing a colonial-era wrong that has led to the continued existence of huge white-owned farms in a coun- try where most black people have little or no land. “What we have said is no one should be entitled to more than one farm. And that farm must be of an appropriate size, he said in September. “No one shall go without land.” 21

The other coun- tries in southern Africa facing famine are also poorly gov- erned, Ottoway and others claim. Two states particularly hard hit, Zambia and Malawi, are better- run than Zimbabwe, in that, at least their leaders aren’t inten- tionally trying to feed certain groups and starve others, experts say.

“These govern- ments are not all bad, but they are not terribly compe- tent either,” says Ottoway, pointing out that both came to power after elec- tions that were “not entirely free and fair.”

The lack of real democracy also leads to corruption, as one leader or party stays in power for years without the kind of institutional checks that might curb abuses. Unbridled corruption can lead to famine in a variety of ways. In Malawi, for instance, the government two years ago inexplicably sold its en- tire emergency corn reserve, despite growing evidence that famine was like- ly. 22 Three million Malawians are now at risk for starvation.

“What you have in some of these countries is predatory exploitation,” says Oxfam’s Griesgraber. “Leaders fo- ment suffering or violence in order to increase power or materially enrich themselves.”

Such corruption is common in many parts of Africa, she adds, such as Congo, where neighboring coun- tries have intervened in one way or another in the civil war, often to sim- ply exploit the country’s prodigious natural resources.

“In Congo you have people, like the president of Uganda, paying off tribes to commit acts of genocide against other groups, simply to keep the area unstable and allow him to continue his mining operations in the Congo,” says Griesgraber. “And that’s just one of many bad situations in that country.”

In the last four years, 3 million Con- golese have died, many from starva- tion or diseases associated with mal- nutrition. Currently, an estimated 1.3 million people are in danger of starv- ing in the eastern part of the coun- try, where most of the fighting is tak- ing place. 23 Similar numbers are

threatened in other countries due to ongoing civil wars (Sudan and Sierra Leone), or recently ended conflicts (An- gola) that have left the survivors un- able to feed themselves.

Starvation in the Horn of Africa, the site of some of the most cata- clysmic famines in modern times, continues in part because of varying degrees of inefficiency in the quasi- democratic or undemocratic regimes in that region, Ottoway says. Indeed, this year, drought and economic trou-

bles have put 15 mil- lion people, mostly in Ethiopia, at risk, ac- cording to the WFP.

In nearby Sudan, mil- l ions have died of hunger or hunger-relat- ed diseases in the last 20 years due to a bru- tal civil war between the government in the Mus- lim north and rebels in the predominantly Chris- tian south. Ongoing ef- forts to provide relief to the malnourished are often stymied by the combatants on both sides, who have been accused of appropriat- ing famine aid to feed soldiers.

“They use our food to fuel their war,” said an aid work- er in Sudan in Bill Berkeley’s 2001 book, The Graves Are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe and Power in the Heart of Africa. “It’s a racket with the chiefs. It’s like a business cartel.” 24

The long civil war in Sudan also has forced millions of people to flee into massive refugee camps in Kenya and other neighboring states, putting added strain on the host countries’ food supplies. The refugees then end up relying on relief agencies for food, often for years on end, at the camps.

But the picture is not all bleak in

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President Robert Mugabe is frequently blamed for much of the famine now threatening 7 million Zimbabweans. Critics say his seizure of many white-owned farms (and some owned by blacks) all but shut

down the country’s once-thriving agricultural sector. But the former freedom fighter says the confiscations were land reforms

needed to redress colonial inequities.

Nov. 8, 2002 935CQ on the Web: www.cqpress.com

the Horn of Africa. Some countries have improved their ability to miti- gate famine’s impact. For example, in Ethiopia — where two rebel groups overthrew a corrupt Marxist regime in 1992 — a more competent gov- ernment has been established in

what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea. “These are not perfect regimes, es- pecially in Eritrea, but they are much more conscious of people’s needs than the earlier communist govern- ment was,” the Carnegie Institute’s Ottoway says.

Fighting Famine

U nlike earthquakes and other nat- ural disasters, famines can be pre-

dicted and prevented, given enough will and resources. Unfortunately, ex-

S ince the 1990s, the wildfire spread of HIV infection and AIDS has devastated southern Africa’s economy and pop- ulation. Many in the food-aid community also blame the

disease, at least in part, for the starvation faced by millions in the region.

In the six African countries most affected by famine, more than one in five adults — usually the most productive mem- bers of society — is either infected with HIV or is dying or seriously ill from AIDS. 1 According to the United Nations (U.N.), 7 million African farmers have died of AIDS, and rural labor productivity has dropped 50 percent. 2

“So many people, particu- larly women, have died, or are desperately ill, that there sim- ply aren’t enough farmers left to plant the seeds, till the soil, harvest the crops, provide the food,” says Stephen Lewis, spe- cial envoy for the U.N. on HIV/AIDS.

“Where the lack of food is greatest, HIV prevalence is alarmingly high,” said Marika Fahlen, director of social mo- bilization and information at UNAIDS, which coordinates AIDS policy at the U.N. “The two emergencies are not mu- tually exclusive.”

“It has a double impact in these places because it is most- ly hitting people in their 20s and 30s, which is the most pro- ductive time of their lives,” says Donald Mavunduse, a Zimbab- wean who works for Actionaid, a relief group based in London.

On many farms, the only people still relatively healthy are the very old and the very young. “You go to villages all over southern Africa and you see only grandparents and kids,” says Khaled Mansour, a spokesman for the World Food Program (WFP), the U.N.’s front-line agency in the fight against global hunger. “Everyone in between is either buried in a plot next to the house or in hospital.”

“This is one of those situations where you run out of ad- jectives,” Mansour adds. “You ask yourself: How much worse can it get? But it’s getting worse.”

Indeed, infection rates will probably keep rising, at least in the near future, says Preg Ramsamy, executive director of the South Africa Development Community, an umbrella organiza- tion representing all 14 nations in the region. HIV/AIDS spreads rapidly, she explains, due to the region’s illiteracy, poverty, high migration levels (both into and inside the countries), civil wars, low status of women and inadequate health systems. 3

The tragedy is already reach- ing epic proportions. “I was in Zimbabwe a month ago, and it’s getting very obvious that this disease has a grip on the country. In one small rural area with three or four little villages, you will see seven or eight fu- nerals a week,” Mavunduse says, adding that the disease “has affected my own family there.”

The death of the strongest, most productive members of the community also means that the most vulnerable are left to fend for themselves. According to the U.N., the 4.2 million or- phans in southern Africa’s famine zone make up a large component of the ranks of the hungry.

“It’s really terrible for many of them, because there is lit-

erally no one left or strong enough to take care of them,” Man- sour says. “So they try to survive by begging or prostituting themselves.”

1 For background, see David Masci, “Global AIDS Crisis,” The CQ Researcher, Oct. 13, 2000, pp. 809-832. 2 www.unaids.org. 3 “South African Leaders to Discuss Poverty, Aids at Annual Summit,” Agence France-Presse, Sept. 18, 2002.

AIDS Toll on Farmers Heightens Famine

AIDs Toll Highest in Southern Africa

HIV/AIDS has ravaged many African countries grappling with famine, including seven in south- ern Africa with infection rates above 20 percent.

Source: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, July 2, 2002

Selected Adults 15-49 Percentage of Countries with HIV/AIDS Population

End of 2001

Congo 99,000 7.2%

Uganda 510,000 5.0

Malawi 780,000 15.0

Zambia 1,000,000 21.5

Zimbabwe 2,000,000 33.7

South Africa 4,700,000 20.1

United States 890,000 0.6

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FAMINE IN AFRICA

perts say, the aid community usually is unable to respond quickly enough to prevent severe malnutrition and starvation. So famines often play out like earthquakes: They inflict terrible damage, and then, belatedly, relief agencies and governments try to mit- igate the suffering.

“We can predict as early as you want, but you have to wait for peo- ple to start dying before enough peo- ple pay attention to make a differ- ence,” says the U.N.’s Mansour. “The current aid system is very antiquated.”

The international food-aid system is a patchwork, in which wealthy gov- ernments usually give money and food to the World Food Program or to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), like CARE or Catholic Relief Services. These groups — which have no permanent sources of funding for relief — also raise money from pri- vate foundations and individual donors.

However, the current famine-relief system is administered on a voluntary, case-by-case basis, Mansour and oth- ers complain. “So unless the country has strategic importance [ l ike Afghanistan], or the story catches the interest of the media, a place might not get a lot of attention from the in- ternational community,” he says.

As a result, many people needlessly go hungry, Mansour says. “There are 800 million people in the world who suffer some form of malnutrition, and only half of them receive any assis- tance each year,” he says.

When a famine is looming in a re- gion, the WFP puts out a public appeal for help. In the case of southern Africa, the organization has asked for $507 mil- lion, a figure that is expected to rise, since the number of projected famine victims has recently been revised from 12 million to more than 14 million.

Once the appeal goes out, donors send either food or money. For in- stance, USAID has delivered and pledged 500,000 tons of corn for southern Africa this year. 25 The corn

is shipped from the United States to ports in the region, and is then trucked to warehouses in the affected coun- tries. The European Union has given $302 million in recent months to pur- chase food in southern Africa. 26

Whether brought in from abroad or purchased locally, the food is then dis- tributed by the WPF to NGOs, who in turn are responsible for distributing it to the people who need it. Larger NGOs — like Oxfam, CARE and Catholic Relief Services — also dis- tribute their own food aid.

NGOs rely on local grass-roots or- ganizations to decide who needs the food the most. “We try to use church groups, health clinics and other kinds of grass-roots organizations to help us determine who is in need and to dis- tribute the aid,” says Chris Hennemeyer, senior regional representative for Africa for Catholic Relief Services. “We then monitor the distribution, making sure [recipient] lists are up to date and that the food gets to the right people.”

The WPF specifically avoids giving the food or aid money to the gov- ernments of the affected countries to distribute. “We don’t want the assis- tance tainted by politics, so we avoid the government and opposition groups,” Monsour says.

But Hennemeyer says his group sometimes works with local officials. “We try to work with non-governmental organizations because the government tends to be inefficient,” he says. “But in remote rural areas we sometimes have to coordinate with local govern- ment officials because we need their help.”

Distributing food in Africa can be difficult and expensive. “There are a lot of challenges because many of these places have very primitive in- frastructure,” Mansour says. “You have to deal with things like dirt roads, which get washed out when the rains come, making it hard, if not impossi- ble, to truck the food to the people who need it.”

And aid workers’ best efforts some- times run smack into the wall of trib- al hierarchies and local customs, which dictate that largess be shared by all. For instance, an ABC News “Nightline” camera crew recently filmed the distribution of sacks of emergency grain in a Congolese village. The food was given to those villagers that aid workers had decided needed it the most — widows with children. But as soon as the workers left, the tribal leader seized the food and redistrib- uted it to everyone in the village. 27

If Africa ever hopes to break the cycle of famine, it will need much more development assistance than the “pittance” it now receives from the de- veloped world, Hennemeyer and oth- ers contend. “These are such resource- poor places that I really can’t see many of them making it without real assis- tance,” he says.

According to the OECD, donor countries and organizations gave Africa $15.7 billion in assistance (about $1 billion for agricultural develop- ment) in 2000, the most recent year the figure was tallied. The amount is significantly less than the $20 bil- lion that was given just five years earlier, in 1996.

But there are signs that the United States is interested in reversing that downward trend. President Bush has promised to earmark an additional $10 billion in foreign assistance in the next three years, much of it expected to go to Africa. Moreover, Treasury Sec- retary Paul O’Neill recently toured Africa with rock star Bono to highlight its plight. The continent currently re- ceives 13.3 percent of U.S. foreign as- sistance. Overall, U.S. foreign aid amounts to only 0.1 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) each year, the lowest rate in the in- dustrialized world. 28

But the Cato Institute’s Clarke ar- gues that African farmers need freer trade, rather than more aid. “The best

Continued on p. 938

no

Nov. 8, 2002 937CQ on the Web: www.cqpress.com

At Issue: Have the World Bank and International Monetary Fund contributed to the current famine in southern Africa?

yes DONALD MAVUNDUSE EMERGENCY-PROGRAM ADVISER, ACTIONAID

WRITTEN FOR THE CQ RESEARCHER, OCTOBER 2002

the underlying causes of the famine in Southern Africa are traceable to International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank structural-adjustment policies implemented in

Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe for more than 10 years prior to this crisis.

The promised economic growth did not materialize after governments pursued these new economic policies, and many more people were worse off at the end of the 10 years than before the new policies were introduced. By the time the food crisis struck, more than 70 percent of the people in the three countries were classified as poor, with limited resources to cope with the food crisis.

In retrospect, the inherent demands of the structural-adjust- ment programs made them a bitter pill to swallow. As their economies were liberalized, poor, rural farmers were catapult- ed into unfair international competition, even as the carpet under their feet was pulled away when previous support structures were seriously scaled down or removed.

The removal of food and agricultural subsidies — one of the demands of neoliberal structural-adjustment programs — had a tremendous impact on the ability of small farmers to produce enough food. In countries like Zimbabwe, safety measures pro- vided by the government to support the poorest farmers fell 64 percent in just one agricultural season (1997-98).

Governments were also required to privatize government enterprises. Zimbabwe privatized its Agricultural Finance Coop- eration (now trading as Agri-Bank). Between 1998 and 2001, small-holder borrowing shrank to a fraction of its value. Ac- cess to agricultural credit dropped about 80 percent, while the cost of borrowing spiraled to 70 percent.

The bank and the IMF also demanded that local currencies be devalued to stimulate direct foreign investment and ensure jobs creation. Zimbabwe devalued its currency by 400 percent in the first five years after adopting structural reforms, which increased fertilizer and imported seed prices. Inflation rose to unprecedented levels. Food prices in Malawi, Zambia and Zim- babwe increased by more than 300 percent.

Meanwhile, governments decreased expenditures on social services and agricultural support. It left the countries to service IMF and World Bank debt. For example 24 percent and 13 percent of the annual export earnings of Zimbabwe and Zam- bia, respectively, went to service foreign debts. The longer the relationship with the IMF and the bank continued, the deeper a vicious cycle of debt developed and continued even through other IMF and World Bank structural-adjustment programs.

JAMES C. ORR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE BRETTON WOODS COMMITTEE

WRITTEN FOR THE CQ RESEARCHER, OCTOBER 2002

actually, just the opposite is true. For a decade, IMF, World Bank and other donor policies have been trying to help farmers increase food production and income

and end the unsustainable reliance on handouts. Significant progress to this end has been achieved and, absent some fail- ing of local government, experts say the region would have been much better equipped to weather the drought.

For instance, prior to the reforms, small farmers in Malawi and Zambia were taxed for producing market crops, like to- bacco and cotton, and subsidized to produce food grains. There was no opportunity to save or invest, as small farmers were locked into the soil-depleting, mono-cropping of maize. Populations grew, but yields declined; soil structure deteriorat- ed; and periodic heavy rains washed away valuable soil. Inef- ficient government marketing boards relied on subsidies that cost society far more than the benefits to smallholders. Not only was the system unsustainable, but it also took funds away from investments in health, education, roads and other programs that would have truly benefited the rural poor.

When the prohibition on cash crops ended in the mid- 1990s, smallholders in Malawi increased incomes significantly by moving into tobacco production. Similar reforms in Zambia allowed small cotton growers to increase their incomes, too.

Similarly, government distribution of seeds and fertilizer un- dercut the growth of private input distributors and stifled in- centives to develop innovative farming techniques. When sub- sidies were scaled back, farmers in Zambia and Malawi adopted conservation tillage and techniques for growing maize that require less fertilizer, produce higher yields, and are more environmentally sustainable.

The causes of the current food shortages are complex. Rainfall in 2001-2002 was uneven, with dry spells and floods reducing yields substantially. Local governments’ early-warning systems were inadequate. Malawi’s marketing board clearly contributed to the crisis by selling off 68,000 metric tons of the strategic grain reserve without authorization; some allege political corruption was involved.

The World Bank has now assumed the lead in revamping regional food security and is part of the wider donor effort to provide short-term assistance to help see the region through the drought. However, in the longer run, Malawi, Zambia and others will only be able to maintain stability in agriculture and achieve rapid economic growth by embracing the world econ- omy, not by trying to shield themselves from it.

938 CQ Researcher

thing we could do is to open our own markets to these countries,” he says, noting that protec- tionist policies keep many African crops — such as cotton — out of U.S. and Eu- ropean markets.

Increasing exports would enable African farmers to prosper, an important devel- opment on a conti- nent where 70 per- cen t o f t he population still lives in the countryside. “If the agricultural sec- tor grows richer,” Clarke says, “then the whole region will grow richer, which is one way to ensure that famines will become much less likely.”

OUTLOOK ‘Death Spiral’?

I n the 1960s and ’70s, policy plan- ners in both Africa and the devel-

oped world predicted a new dawn for the African continent. Newly granted independence, coupled with a poten- tial green revolution and economic de- velopment, would alleviate crippling poverty and famine once and for all, it was thought.

More than 30 years later, Africa’s promise has not been realized. Pover- ty and famine are still rife, and many analysts say there is little prospect for improvement any time soon. “When you look into the future at the food security situation, you quickly see that

Africa is in a kind of death spiral with little end in sight,” says Avery of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Global Issues.

Experts are particularly pessimistic about southern Africa, where contin- ued government inefficiency and cor- ruption, a difficult natural environment and the growing presence of HIV/AIDS will likely make life harder.

“It’s very difficult to think things are going to get better in southern Africa any time soon,” says ActionAid’s Mavun- duse. “For one thing, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is getting worse, not bet- ter, so we’re going to have to be deal- ing with that for a long time.”

Meanwhile, despite the HIV/AIDS crisis, birth rates remain high. According to the Population Reference Bureau, the average woman in sub-Saharan Africa bears an average of 5.6 chil- dren, compared to 1.5 for a Western European woman. 29 Thus, the pop- ulation in many countries will contin- ue to swell, creating even more or- phans, as their parents join the millions of AIDS deaths expected in the coming decade.

The growing popu- lation will only exacer- bate the food situation, contends James New- man, a professor of ge- ology at the Maxwell School of Citizenship at Syracuse University. “As the population contin- ues to expand, the de- mand for land and water is going to grow.”

The southern part of the continent in partic- ular is likely to suffer from chronic water short- ages in the coming decades, according to Newman. “They have no major rivers or lakes and few aquifers,” he says. “So you see very little in the way of irri-

gation and even water for basic human needs in many places.”

In addition, many, if not most, of Africa’s governments are likely to re- main undemocratic, inefficient and cor- rupt, experts say. “There are lots of wonderful people in Africa working very hard to make things better, but I just don’t see that on the governmen- tal level right now, and I don’t see it changing any time soon,” Oxfam’s Gries- graber says. “I think the predatory na- ture of many of these regimes is going to remain for the foreseeable future.”

Moreover, Griesgraber argues, in spite of renewed interest in Africa’s oil reserves, the developed world is un- likely to pay enough attention to the continent to really help nudge it in the right direction, primarily because it doesn’t have enough economic or strategic importance. “To be honest with you, Africa is little more than a nuisance to the United States. I don’t think we’re going to put in the re- sources it’s going to take to make a real difference.”

Others, though, are more upbeat, both in terms of Africa’s ability to solve

FAMINE IN AFRICA

Continued from p. 936

A FP

P h o to

/A ro

n U

fu m

el i

Donated bread feeds a family in Zimbabwe in mid-October. Although the United States and many other developed nations have given

hundreds of millions of dollars for famine relief, the United Nations’ World Food Program only has two-thirds of the $507 million it needs

to feed the 40 million Africans facing hunger and starvation.

Nov. 8, 2002 939CQ on the Web: www.cqpress.com

its own problems and the donor community’s commitment to help- ing them. Optimists point to the recent creation of the African Union (AU) as a sign that at least a handful of African leaders are committed to improving gover- nance. The trans-Africa organi- zation aspires to be like the Eu- ropean Union and bring the continent’s countries into closer cooperation. At its founding meet- ing in June, the union adopted a bold new plan — the New Economic Program for African Development (NEPAD) — that pledges to hold African govern- ments to high standards of good governance and democracy in return for increases in trade and investment, rather than aid, from the developed world.

“The NEPAD proposal is a defining moment in post-colonial Africa,” said John Stremlau, who teaches interna- tional relations at the University of Wit- watersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. “It’s a made-in-Africa initiative pointing in the direction of mutual ac- countability, thereby having the African states uphold principles of good gov- ernance, political and economic re- form and commitment to regional co- operation, while expecting in return the industrial countries to reward that behavior.” 30

NEPAD is a sign that many African states are really serious about good governance, agrees Robert Berg, se- nior adviser to the U.N. Economic Com- mission for Africa, a think tank that promotes economic growth on the con- tinent. “The newer leaders have cast out the idea that colonialism made the mess they’re in and have come to be- lieve that they are responsible for clean- ing up their own backyards,” he says. “Donor states have taken notice, and there’s more interest in trade and in- vestment with Africa as a result.”

Berg also is optimistic over the long-term prospects for African food

security. “The prospects for increased agricultural productivity are terrific, be- cause Africa has yet to reap the ben- efits of the green revolution,” he says. In the coming decades, he predicts, more and more African countries will adopt seeds and farming methods that optimize crop yields, just as India and other developing countries have done.

The World Bank, USAID and other aid agencies already see this potential and are planning to shift more re- sources into agricultural production, Berg adds. “They recognize that there is a real need to promote this and are gearing up to do so.”

The World Bank currently provides $2.5 billion in loans and other assis- tance to Africa. Only about 12 per- cent of the total, $308 million, will go to agricultural projects, such as im-

proving irrigation and rural in- frastructure. Still, bank support- ers note that the bank’s funding for African agriculture is up sig- nificantly from its $196-million level five years ago. “We are very committed to making rural Africa more productive, since such a large number of Africans still live in the countryside,” says bank spokesman Raymond Toye.

Moreover, humanitarian-aid of- ficials retain hope that, even if Africa’s governments or natural conditions don’t dramatically change, the food-aid communi- ty’s ability to help famine vic- tims will continue improving.

“We can’t control natural dis- asters or even human error, but

we have been able to mitigate suf- fering,” says the Food Aid Coalition’s Levinson. “And we’re going to con- tinue to get better at that.

“If you look at how we’ve responded in Ethiopia and southern Africa recently and compare that to our response in famines like the one in Ethiopia in the mid-1980s or Somalia in the early 1990s, you’ll see a world of difference,” she says. “We’re clearly getting better at preventing these disasters from spi- raling out of control.”

Notes

1 Quoted in Claire Keeton, “Food Shortages Have Hit the Rich and Poor Alike,” South Africa Business Day, Oct. 17, 2002. 2 Quoted in Ibid.

About the Author David Masci specializes in science, religion and foreign- policy issues. Before joining The CQ Researcher in 1996, he was a reporter at Congressional Quarterly’s Daily Monitor and CQ Weekly. He holds a law degree from The George Washington University and a B.A. in medieval history from Syracuse University. His recent reports include “Con- fronting Iraq” and “Prospects for Mideast Peace.”

“The prospects for

increased agricultural

productivity are terrific,

because Africa has yet to

reap the benefits of the

green revolution.”

— Robert Berg Senior Adviser,

U.N. Economic Commission for Africa

940 CQ Researcher

FAMINE IN AFRICA

3 Quoted in Ibid. 4 Jon Jeter, “Famine Sweeps Southern Africa,” The Washington Post, May 10, 2002. 5 Pamela Bone, “Stop Famine’s March in Africa, U.N. Pleads,” The [Melbourne, Aus- tralia] Age, Sept. 19, 2002. 6 Quoted in Manoah Esipisu, “Donors Slow on Southern Africa Crisis,” Reuters News Ser- vice, Oct. 16, 2002. 7 Figure cited in “At Last, a Sort of Peace to Keep,” The Economist, Oct. 12, 2002. 8 Figure cited in James Palmer, “Natural Dis- aster and Donor Fatigue Leave Millions Fac- ing Starvation,” The [London] Independent, Oct. 29, 2002. 9 Quoted in Henri E. Chavin, “Between Famine and Politics, Zambians Starve,” The New York Times, Aug. 30, 2002. 10 Quoted in Henri E. Cauvin, “Zambian Leader Defends Ban on Genetic Altered Foods,” The New York Times, Sept. 4, 2002. 11 Quoted in Brian Fallow, “Food Aid Fears Stun FAO Head,” New Zealand Herald, Oct. 2, 2002. 12 Quoted in Sebastian Mallaby, “Phony Fears Fan a Famine,” The Washington Post, Sept. 2, 2002. 13 Ibid. 14 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, http://www.oecd.org/xls/ M00022000/M00022536.xls. 15 “Reform? Forget It,” The Economist, Oct. 5, 2002. 16 Quoted in John Vidal, “U.S. Accused of Dumping Unsold GM Food on Africa,” The Guardian, Oct. 7, 2002. 17 Alex De Waal, Famine Crimes: Politics and the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa (1997), p. 1. 18 Ibid, p. 27. 19 John Iliffe, Africans: The History of a Con- tinent (1995), p. 268. 20 Quoted in Amartya Sen, “Individual Free- dom as a Social Commitment,” The New York Review of Books, June 14, 1990. 21 Quoted in Rachel L. Swarns, “Criticized by the West, Mugabe is a Hero to Many,” The New York Times, Sept. 6, 2002. 22 “Stick Beats Carrot,” The Economist, Aug. 8, 2002. 23 Marc Lacey, “International Aid Groups Fear New Crisis in Eastern Congo,” The New York Times, Oct. 19, 2002. 24 Quoted in Bill Berkeley, The Graves Are

Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe, and Power in the Heart of Africa (2001), p. 195. 25 www.usaid.gov. 26 “Food Aid to Southern Africa Doubles in Two Months,” Agence France Presse, Oct. 17, 2002. 27 ABC News “Nightline,” “Priestly Mission: Shabunda, Still the Heart of Darkness,” Jan. 22, 2002.

28 For background, see Mary H. Cooper, “For- eign Aid After Sept. 11,” The CQ Researcher, April 26, 2002, pp. 361-392. 29 Win Carty, “Poverty Fuels Developing World’s High Birth Rate,” Population Refer- ence Bureau, 2002, www.prb.org. 30 Quoted in Challiss McDonough, “New African Union Plan Draws Mixed Reaction,” Voice of America, July 4, 2002.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ActionAid, Hamlyn House, Macdonald Road, Archway, London, N19 5PG, United Kingdom; 44 20 7561 7561; www.actionaid.org. A development agency that works to reduce poverty in the developing world.

CARE, 151 Ellis St., Atlanta, GA 30303; (404) 681-2552; www.careusa.org. One of the world’s largest private humanitarian organizations, founded at the end of World War II to fight poverty; headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

Catholic Relief Services, 209 West Fayette St., Baltimore, MD 21201-3443; (410) 625-2220; www.catholicrelief.org. Founded in 1943 by Catholic bishops in the United States to assist the poor and disadvantaged of other nations.

Corn Refiners Association, 1701 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 950, Washing- ton, DC 20006; (202) 331-1634; www.corn.org. Promotes corn refining and prod- uct development and lobbies on behalf of the refining industry.

Greenpeace USA, 702 H. St., N.W., Suite 300, Washington, DC 20001; (800) 326- 0959; www.greenpeaceusa.org. Founded in 1971, Greenpeace supports environ- mental causes around the world.

Interaction, 1717 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Suite 701, Washington DC 20036; (202) 667-8227; www.interaction.org. The largest alliance of U.S.-based internation- al development and humanitarian non-governmental organizations.

International Food Policy Research Institute, 2033 K St., N.W., Washington DC 20006-1002; (202) 862-5600; www.ifpri.cgiar.org. A think tank that seeks to identify and analyze policies for sustainably meeting the food needs of the devel- oping world.

Oxfam International, 26 West St., Boston, MA 02111; (800) 776-932-6872; www.oxfamamerica.org. A confederation of 12 aid organizations dedicated to cre- ating lasting solutions to hunger, poverty and social injustice in more than 100 countries.

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Ronald Reagan Bldg., Washington DC 20523-1000; (202) 712-4810; www.usaid.gov. The principal U.S. government outreach agency to countries recovering from disaster, trying to es- cape poverty and engaging in democratic reforms.

World Food Program, Two United Nations Plaza, Room DC 2-2500, New York, NY 10017; (212) 963-8364; www.wfp.org. The principal U.N. famine-relief agency; headquarters in Rome.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Nov. 8, 2002 941CQ on the Web: www.cqpress.com

Books

Berkeley, Bill, The Graves Are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe, and Power in the Heart of Africa, Basic Books, 2001. A journalist with wide experience in Africa catalogs many

of the continent’s conflicts and their impact, including mass starvation.

De Waal, Alex, Famine Crimes: Politics and the Disas- ter Relief Industry in Africa, Indiana University Press, 1997. Arguing that famine is as preventable in Africa as it has

been elsewhere in the developing world, the co-director of African Rights, a London-based human rights group, calls for the replacement of Africa’s authoritarian leaders and the re- lief groups that he claims aid the continent’s dictators.

Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies, W.W. Norton, 1997. A professor of physiology at the University of California

School of Medicine argues that environment has been the primary force shaping human development and that Africa has been held back by its paucity of arable land and do- mesticatable plants and animals.

Iliffe, John, Africans: The History of a Continent, Cam- bridge University Press, 1995. A professor of African history at Cambridge gives a good

overview of Africa, including its struggles with famine.

Articles

Andrews, Edmund L., “Rich Nations Are Criticized for Enforcing Trade Barriers,” The New York Times, Sept. 30, 2002, p. A8. Andrews details the debate between aid groups and the

governments of developed countries over farm subsidies and agricultural tariffs, which critics say help the world’s richest farmers while devastating farmers in Africa and other poor areas.

“Can Famine Be Averted?” The Economist, Aug. 1, 2002. The article argues that food aid must be made available

now if mass starvation is to be averted in southern Africa.

Chauvin, Henri E., “Between Famine and Politics, Zam- bians Starve,” The New York Times, Aug. 30, 2002, p. A6. The article details the controversy in Zambia over the gov-

ernment’s unwillingness to accept genetically modified food aid from the United States.

Jeter, Jon, “Famine Sweeps Southern Africa,” The Wash- ington Post, June 5, 2002, p. A1. Jeter looks into the causes of the latest famine to sweep

Africa, from HIV/AIDS to the policies of allegedly corrupt leaders like Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.

McHughen, Alan, “Activists Cause Millions to Starve,” The San Diego Union Tribune, Sept. 26, 2002, p. B15. A biotech specialist at the University of California at River-

side criticizes European-based activists who have been con- vincing some African leaders not to accept genetically mod- ified foods in spite of widespread famine. “They tend to be anti-globalization, anti-trade, anti-American,” he writes. “Their members also tend to be white, well fed, and politically frus- trated.”

Mulugeta, Samson, “Farmers Struggle to Compete,” Newsday, Aug. 25, 2002, p. A17. The article claims that African agriculture only will become

productive when the developed world ends subsidies to farmers.

Roy, Ranjan, “Southern African Food Crisis Exacerbat- ed by HIV/AIDS Pandemic, U.N. Officials Say,” The As- sociated Press, Sept. 29, 2002. The piece examines the connection between the HIV/AIDS

pandemic in southern Africa and the region’s famine.

Swarns, Rachel L., “Meager Harvests in Africa Leave Mil- lions at the Edge of Starvation,” The New York Times, June 23, 2002, p. A1. Swarns examines the causes of and responses to the famine

in southern Africa.

Rotberg, Robert I., “A Cry Against Pol Pot,” The Christ- ian Science Monitor, May 3, 2002, p. 11. The director of an aid organization blames President Robert

Mugabe for the deaths of 1 million Zimbabweans, many from starvation, comparing him to Cambodia’s genocidal for- mer dictator Pol Pot.

Reports

Morris, James T., “First Mission of the Special Envoy to Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, and Zambia, 3-15 September, 2002,” United Nations, Sept. 24, 2002. The special envoy to the secretary-general for humanitarian

needs in southern Africa details his findings after visiting famine-devastated southern Africa.

Selected Sources

Bibliography

942 CQ Researcher

AIDS Crisis

McGeary, Johanna, “Death Stalks A Continent,” Time, Feb. 12, 2001, p. 36. In the dry timber of African societies, AIDS was a spark.

The conflagration it set off continues to kill millions by destabilizing the underpinnings of society.

Sternberg, Steve, “Africa’s AIDS Ledger Grows,” USA Today, June 26, 2002, p. D8. AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is undermining fragile economies

and contributing to food shortages.

Thurow, Roger, “Arrested Development: Botswana Watch- es Economic Success Destroyed by AIDS,” The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 29, 2002, p. A1. Larger developing countries in Africa ought to be paying

more attention to the ravages of AIDS throughout southern Africa — where famine also looms on the horizon.

Extent of Famine

“Can Famine Be Averted? — Hunger In Southern Africa,” The Economist, Aug. 3, 2002. No matter how quickly Western donors respond to the

disastrous food shortage in southern Africa, millions more people will need aid over the next nine months.

“Official Says a Shortage of Food Is Threatening Millions in Africa,” The New York Times, Oct. 30, 2002, p. A8. With up to 16 million people in Ethiopia and Eritrea alone

facing food shortages, a World Food Program official said the situation was “very grim.”

Jeter, Jon, “Famine Sweeps Southern Africa; Millions Suf- fering in Crisis Created by Nature, Exacerbated by Man,” The Washington Post, May 10, 2002, p. A1. The “perfect famine” is taking shape across southern Africa

— a disastrous collaboration between nature and man.

Lacey, Marc, “International Aid Groups Fear New Crisis in Eastern Congo,” The New York Times, Oct. 19, 2002, p. A7. Aid workers are warning of a crisis in eastern Congo, where

local militias have begun destabilizing food distribution.

Nessman, Ravi, “Famine Threatens 14 Million in South- ern Africa,” The Washington Post, Sept. 17, 2002, p. A22. A food crisis in six southern African countries has wors-

ened and now threatens more than 14 million people.

Swarns, Rachel L., “Famine Warning For Four Coun- tries,” The New York Times, May 31, 2002, p. A13. The U.N. says Malawi, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Swaziland

face potential famine following two years of poor harvests.

Genetically Modified Foods

“Better Dead Than GM-Fed? How Europe’s Greens Keep Africa Hungry,” The Economist, Sept. 21, 2002. Southern Africa’s food crisis is likely to be the worst in a

decade, and Zambia’s refusal to accept genetically modified corn as food aid threatens to exacerbate the problem.

Johnson, Keith, “In Debate Over Modified Foods, Famine Weighs In,” The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 4, 2002, p. A18. The famine in southern Africa has given a new urgency

to the developing world’s debate over the health risks posed by genetically modified food.

Jordan, Carl F., “Genetic Engineering the Farm Crisis,” BioScience, June 1, 2002, p. 523. Some experts think that advances in Western farming tech-

niques have placed too much market pressure on African agriculture and helped produce famines.

Maharaj, Davan, and Anthony Mukwita, “Zambia Rejects Gene-Altered U.S. Corn,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 28, 2002, p. A1. Zambia is refusing to accept genetically modified corn to

help ease the starvation of about 2.5 million people.

Paarlberg, Robert L., “African Famine, Made In Europe,” The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 23, 2002, p. A12. Zimbabwe and Zambia have rejected shipments of U.S.

corn because some varieties are genetically modified (GM).

Weiss, Rick, “Zimbabwe Ends Altered-Corn Dispute,” The Washington Post, Aug. 10, 2002, p. A14. Zimbabwe and international aid agencies reached an ac-

cord to distribute thousands of tons of genetically modified corn to the hunger-stricken nation.

Western Aid

“Drought, Death and Taxes — Ethiopia’s Food Crisis,” The Economist, Sept. 7, 2002. Ethiopia’s food shortage is not as terrible as southern Africa’s,

but millions of dollars in Western food aid nonetheless will be needed to avert disaster.

“Missing the Point — Making Foreign Aid More Effec- tive,” The Economist, March 16, 2002. If Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill wants foreign aid to be

more effective, he should start with his own policies of dis- tributing aid without proper oversight and management.

“U.S. Will Increase Food Aid to Africa,” Los Angeles Times, June 12, 2002, p. A10.

The Next Step: Additional Articles from Current Periodicals

Nov. 8, 2002 943CQ on the Web: www.cqpress.com

The U.S. said it will provide a third of the food aid need- ed to stave off famine in southern Africa.

Becker, Elizabeth, “A New Villain in Free Trade: The Farmer on the Dole,” The New York Times, Aug. 25, 2002, p. A10. Some see big American farmers as greedy welfare kings

undermining poor farmers in Africa, Latin America and Asia with their massive subsidy systems.

Becker, Elizabeth, “U.N. Agency Urgently Seeks Food for Afghans and Africans,” The New York Times, Oct. 22, 2002, p. A8. The U.N. appealed for immediate help for Afghanistan and

southern Africa, warning that failure to provide aid could lead to famine.

Farley, Maggie, “World Hunger on the Rise Again,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 16, 2002, p. A4. More crises and fewer donations from wealthy nations have

combined to erase gains made in the 1990s in the fight against world hunger, the United Nations reports.

Nichols, Bill, “U.S. Prepares ‘Big-Time’ Response to Famine,” USA Today, May 1, 2002, p. A12. U.S. officials are scrambling to cope with a potentially cat-

astrophic famine in drought-stricken southern Africa that threatens 5 million people with starvation.

Phillips, Michael W., “U.N. Warns West to Act to Help Southern Africa Avoid Famine,” The Wall Street Journal, July 22, 2002, p. A13. Nearly 13 million people in southern Africa face starvation

unless the U.S. and other wealthy nations contribute more than $600 million in food aid, experts say.

Zimbabwe’s Famine

“A Mugabe-Made Famine,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 18,

2002, p. M4. The idea of a man-made famine that kills millions of in-

nocents as a tool of government policy seems too horrible to believe — but it may be happening in Zimbabwe.

“Famine Looms For 6 Million in Zimbabwe,” Chicago Tribune, Aug. 18, 2002, p. C4. Southern Africa’s food shortage threatens to be particular-

ly devastating this year in Zimbabwe.

Coltart, David, “Zimbabwe’s Man-Made Famine,” The New York Times, Aug. 7, 2002, p. A17. It has been clear for some years that the Mugabe regime

is unconcerned with the famine wracking Zimbabwe.

Maharaj, Davan, and Peta Thornycroft, “Zimbabwe’s First Lady Grabs a Luxury Farm for Herself,” Los Ange- les Times, Aug. 27, 2002, p. A1. Analysts say Mugabe’s reclamation of white farms is threat-

ening food supplies and endangering about 6 million Zim- babweans — nearly half the country’s population.

Rosett, Claudia, “There’s Nothing Natural About Zimbab- we’s Woes,” The Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2002, p. A10. In the waiting room of Zimbabwe’s mission to the U.N., the

travel promotions clash grimly with the current state-induced famine that is devastating the country.

Simmons, Ann, “Hunger Casts a Deep Shadow Over Malawi,” Los Angeles Times, June 6, 2002, p. A6. In Zimbabwe, which is suffering from both drought and

the effects of President Robert Mugabe’s land-redistribution policies, about 3 million people will need daily food aid.

Swarns, Rachel L., “Hunger in Zimbabwe Takes Toll on Education,” The New York Times, Sept. 11, 2002, p. A3. Half of Zimbabwe’s 12 million people now need emer-

gency food aid, the U.N. says, and malnutrition levels are rising, particularly among women and children.

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CHILDREN/YOUTH Cyber-Predators, March 2002 Preventing Teen Drug Use, March 2002 Sexual Abuse and the Clergy, May 2002

CRIMINAL JUSTICE War on Terrorism, October 2001 Rethinking the Death Penalty, Nov. 2001 Intelligence Reforms, January 2002 Cyber-Crime, April 2002 Corporate Crime, October 2002

EDUCATION Grade Inflation, June 2002 Single-Sex Schools, July 2002 Teaching Math and Science, Sept. 2002

ENVIRONMENT Invasive Species, October 2001 Energy and Security, February 2002 Threatened Fisheries, August 2002 Bush and the Environment, October 2002

HEALTH CARE AND MEDICINE Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, April 2002 Covering the Uninsured, June 2002 Nursing Shortage, September 2002 Food Safety, November 2002

LEGAL ISSUES Policing the Borders, February 2002 Accountants Under Fire, March 2002 Three-Strikes Laws, May 2002 Religion in the Workplace, August 2002

MODERN CULTURE Future Job Market, January 2002 Archaeology Today, May 2002 Retirement Security, May 2002 Living-Wage Movement, September 2002

POLITICS/GOVERNMENT U.S.-Russia Relations, January 2002 Weapons of Mass Destruction, March 2002 Emerging India, April 2002

Farming Subsidies, May 2002 Prospects for Mideast Peace, August 2002 New Defense Priorities, September 2002 Confronting Iraq, October 2002

TRANSPORTATION Auto Industry’s Future, January 2000 Auto Safety, October 2001 Future of the Airline Industry, June 2002 Future of Amtrak, October 2002

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